IMPORTANT: This is a legacy document which applies to older systems built primarily before mid-2024. Newer systems manufactured by Dell or Avnet for Exacq were benchmarked according to the latest version of this article at How exacqVision Performance is Benchmarked.
For help selecting the correct exacqVision server for your application, please use our configuration calculator.
exacqVision Server performance is benchmarked under typical real-world conditions to provide meaningful guidance in selecting the correct server for your application. All performance guidelines are approximate. Exacq recommends having at least 20% spare data rate capacity for your application.
Maximum Camera Data Rate represents the server’s ability to continuously record, search, and play back video. This value is measured during a 24-hour load test under the following conditions:
Maximum IP cameras: The server is connected to the maximum number of IP cameras. Reducing the number of IP cameras increases the continuous data rate by lowering the operating system’s file management overhead.
Drives 100% full: This ensures the server is capable of deleting old video files without negatively affecting the ability to write new files.
Local client operational: The local client is operated at the rated frame rate. Remote clients (running on a seperate PC) typically have a minimal impact on server performance. The client application consumes significant CPU capacity for video decompression.
Minimum disk quantity: Servers are tested with a typical disk quantity for each server model, as shown in the following list. Video storage is usually limited by disk input/output capacity; increasing the disk quantity increases the server’s video storage rate.
*EL & ELX series: 1 drive
*A series desktop: 1 drive
*A series 2U: 2 drives
*A series 4U: 4 drives (RAID 5)
*Z series 2U: 4 drives (RAID 5)
*Z series 3U: 6 drives (RAID 6)
*Z series 4U: 8 drives (RAID 6)
Search active: The server must perform a search for 30 minutes of video across eight cameras without negatively affecting local client or video storage operation.
Operating System: Each OS is tested independently because the Linux EXT4 file system has shown higher throughput in some server configurations than the Windows NTFS file system. EXT4 can handle larger ranges of contiguous physical blocks of data, allowing it to work more efficiently with large files and reduce drive fragmentation. EXT4 has also shown more efficient journaling and checksum process.
Local Client Display Frame Rate represents the client application’s ability to decompress and display live or recorded video with 80% of CPU load. This is tested using a D1-sized (.36MP) H.264 video stream with a quality of 9. H.264 requires significantly more CPU power to decompress than MJPEG or MPEG; thus, performance is the same or better using MJPEG or MPEG compression.
When using cameras with large image sizes, divide the camera image size in megapixels by .36 to determine the equivalent client display load. For example, a 720×1080 camera (.77MP) requires about 2.2 D1 frames worth of decompression capacity. A server rated for 500FPS at D1 can display 230FPS at 720×1080.
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